A Solana-based memecoin created in honor of Jonathan, the world's oldest living land tortoise at 193 years old, experienced a violent price surge and crash on Wednesday, April 2, 2026, following a widespread April Fools' Day hoax about the animal's death. The token, $JONATHAN, rallied to a high of approximately $0.00038, marking a near 1,400% jump within just one hour, according to CoinMarketCap's DEX screener, before falling back to around $0.000071.
The frenzy was triggered by a post from an account on X impersonating Jonathan's real veterinarian, Joe Hollins. The fake account posted a memorial message claiming the tortoise had died and linked to a Solana contract address for the JONATHAN token. The false news was amplified by several trusted sources, including Wikipedia and the BBC, before being debunked by the Governor of St. Helena, Nigel Phillips, and the real Joe Hollins, who confirmed Jonathan was alive and well.
The token's fully diluted value was just $73,000 with $22,000 in liquidity, yet its daily volume spiked to nearly $640,000 during the event. The JONATHAN token was created eight months prior via the memecoin generator Pump.fun and had seen previous price activity, including an all-time high on March 23.
In response to the incident, X's head of product, Nikita Bier, announced the platform is implementing new rules to combat such scams. The plan involves auto-locking and requiring verification for accounts that mention cryptocurrency for the first time in their history, aiming to strip away most of the incentive for such fraudulent promotions. Bier stated this should "kill 99% of the incentive."
The event highlights a familiar pattern in crypto fraud: using impersonation and emotional narratives to create trading frenzies around low-liquidity tokens before the lie is exposed.
